Jammu & Kashmir: Electricity Restored in Valley After Hours of Outage Due to Heavy Snowfall

Srinagar, November 4: After a Valley-wide power breakdown triggered by heavy snowfall on Saturday, the authorities in Kashmir were able to restore electricity in most parts of the region on Sunday.

According to officials, 90 per cent of Srinagar city was electrified by the evening, whereas, power supply was also resumed in most rural parts of the Valley. In some villages of South Kashmir, however, the transmission lines were yet to be repaired. Season's First Snowfall in J&K, See Pics.

100 percent electricity lines will be restored within the next few hours, confirmed Hashmat Qazi, the Chief Engineer (Electric Maintenance) of Kashmir.

"Due to transmission failures, our supply was on Saturday cut down to just 80MW. On Sunday we are supplying around 1,000 MW. We are facing problems in south Kashmir areas where some of our transmission towers have been damaged. This will take a day or two for complete restoration," he was quoted as saying by news agency IANS.

The unprecedented damage to transmission lines was caused by the heavy winds which accompanied the snowfall on Saturday, said Qazi, pointing that tree-felling in most parts was the reason behind the power outages.

Notably, it was the first time the Kashmir Valley received snowfall in November over the past decade. The last time Autumn ended this early was in 2009.

Apart from plunging Kashmir into darkness, the snowfall also ended up cutting off Kashmir from the rest of India as the National Highway was blocked. Flight operations were also suspended on Saturday due to the low-visibility.